Virgin Galactic's Space Tourist Ship Passes Major Flight Test

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A private spaceship built to carry space tourists on suborbital
flights for the company Virgin Galactic passed a major glide test
flight while flying over California's Mojave Desert today (May
4): The spacecraft tested out the novel system it will use when
re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Today's flight marked Virgin Galactic's seventh glide test for
its first SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, called the VSS Enterprise, and
took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port.

SpaceShipTwo was carried to its high-altitude drop zone by the
WhiteKnightTwo mothership, VMS Eve. Both vehicles have been
designed and built by Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., an
aerospace and specialty composites development company. [ Photos:
SpaceShipTwo's First Glide Test Flight ]

The WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo combo serves as a launch system,
the backbone of Virgin Galactic’s aspirations to create a
spaceline -- one that would whisk tourists into space on a
suborbital trajectory. SpaceShipTwo vehicles are designed to
carry six passengers and two pilots to the edge of space and
back.

The pay-per-view flights are billed as giving tourists a
spectacular view of the Earth and several minutes of
weightlessness. A per-seat price of $200,000 is being offered by
Virgin Galactic. The space liner operations are backed by
British billionaire, Sir Richard Branson, founder of the firm.

"In all test flight programs, after the training, planning and
rehearsing, there comes the moment when you have to go up there
and fly it for real. This

morning's flight was a test pilot's dream," Siebold said. “The
spaceship is a joy to fly and the feathered descent portion added
a new, unusual but wonderful dynamic to the ride. The fact that
it all went according to plan and that there were no surprises is
a great testament to the whole team."

SpaceShipTwo's re-entry safety feature

The concept of feathered re-entry for spacecraft has been
compared to the flight of a shuttlecock in badminton. It allows
SpaceShipTwo to rely on aerodynamics and the laws of physics to
control speed and altitude. SpaceShipTwo's ability to feather its
tail section is a safety feature, one that allows the craft to
return into the thick atmosphere from the edge of space.
[ Video:
SpaceShipOne's 1st Crewed Flight ]

Once SpaceShipTwo boosts itself out of the atmosphere, the entire
tail structure of the spaceship can be rotated upward to about 65
degrees. In this feathered configuration, automatic control of
attitude with the fuselage parallel to the horizon is achieved.
This creates very high drag as the spacecraft descends through
the upper regions of the atmosphere.

According to Virgin Galactic fact sheets, the feather
configuration is also highly stable, effectively giving the pilot
a hands-free re-entry capability, something that has not been
possible on spacecraft before, without resorting to computer
controlled fly-by-wire systems.

The combination of high drag and low weight -- due to the very
light materials used to construct the vehicle -- mean that the
skin temperature during re-entry stays very low compared to
previous human-carrying spacecraft. In short, thermal protection
systems such as heat shields or tiles are not needed.

On a suborbital flight, following re-entry at around 70,000 feet,
SpaceShipTwo’s feather lowers to its original configuration and
the spaceship becomes a glider for the flight back to the
spaceport runway and touchdown.

"This morning's spectacular flight by VSS Enterprise was its
third in 12 days, reinforcing the fast turnaround and frequent
flight-rate potential of Virgin Galactic's new vehicles," added
Virgin Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides. "We have
also shown this morning that the unique feathering re-entry
mechanism, probably the single most important safety innovation
within the whole system, works perfectly," he added.

Flight log getting longer

The shakeout flights of SpaceShipTwo have been picking up speed.

On April 22 and April 27 -- the fifth and sixth test flights for
SpaceShipTwo -- saw the piloted craft dropped from high altitude
by the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane. The April 27 glide test
marked
SpaceShipTwo's longest flight yet: 16 minutes and 7 seconds,
according to a Scaled Composites flight log.

The rocket plane has been put through an ever-expanding set of
flight objectives, starting with its maiden free flight on Oct.
10, 2010. These shakeout tests are leading to yet another
milestone to enable commercial operation of the spaceship.

While more tests of the SpaceShipTwo in free flight are expected,
a major objective still to come are SpaceShipTwo missions
involving short, medium and long blasts from the spacecraft’s
hybrid rocket motor.

Whitesides said that today's milestone "brings us ever closer to
the start of commercial operations. Credit is due to the whole
Scaled team, whose meticulous planning and great skill are
changing the course of history."

Winner of this year’s National Space Club Press Award,
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more
than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National
Space Society’s Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has
written for SPACE.com since 1999.